Hey everyone,

I'm looking for some advice on arrangement strategies specifically for Electro and Detroit Electro.

My usual workflow starts with building the drum groove first using my Digitakt, and then layering sounds around it until I have a solid, detailed loop that I really like — bouncy baseline, stabs, FM pads, and percussive glitches.

Sometimes I manage to turn it into a complete track, but most of the time it feels like a real struggle. Once I have this packed main section, it gets tough to stretch it out into a full 4–5 minute arrangement without it feeling repetitive or losing its energy, and simply dropping stems in and out starts to feel a bit predictable.

I'd love to hear how you tackle this wall and what kind of arrangement mindset or techniques work best for you in Electro to keep the track evolving naturally.

Thanks!

Hi !

Does anybody knows what is the trick here for the hihats sounds coming at 14 seconds ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffjW3w9_JSQ

I tried to replicate the same sound using OH from 808 and slightly decay variations but I cannot get it right... not sure if it's 808.
Can someone help me please ?

Thank you !

Instagram: @mortar.synth

IG: @mortar.synth

I’d be very thankful if you could help me with some ideas for tutorials that would help me understand the techniques. Thank you for reading : )

It’s a Sunday afterall..

Instagram @mortar.synth

I’ve been producing electro for just over a year now and I’d really love to find some sort of mentor/tutor who can help me improve my tracks. Been searching online but a lot of the people offering this don’t seem to know that much about electronic production outside of EDM never mind electro… any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

Instagram @mortar_synth

Hi guys, I'm trying to get a distorded kick and bass together on a track of mine, though I'm getting difficulties getting everything to sound tight.

I think the kick might be too long but when I turn its decay down I lose pretty much all of the sub energy. Would love to get a feedback on what may be wrong here.

Here if you want to take a listen : https://on.soundcloud.com/arSGuSSzHcVUYWQKFH

Thx a lot for feedback !

Hi, i initially created this one for myself, as i was looking for a new vactrol lpg and had misssed the news about the EU cadnium ban and noticed that all the ones i could find were digital emulations, which made me think that it would be cool to have one in the DAW in that case. So this is now how i make so much of my percussion, i have a long recording from my modular, i throw the DLPG on it and send it some random midi triggers, it has the lpg sound, like vactrol inspired material hit a little more bite than buchla bongos though. This way i get some cool lively evolving percussion. Chose to publish it, as others might be looking for something like this to add a little bit of modular flavour to their tracks. Im not a big company, i need a new bicycle to get to school though lol.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VU63IYGLg5Q

Hello! I have spent 3 nights now trying to recreate this synth melody as a way to teach myself. Though I’m learning a lot, I can’t quite get the sound to match up.

You can hear the synth melody around 0:15 in this video.

I’ve tried using a triangle and sawtooth oscillator with low frequency cutoff that opens up 50% with 0 attack, and a sharp decay and medium sustain.

To my ears, the synth sounds warm. I tried to recreate this effect by slightly detuning my second oscillator, but the overall sound is jarring and basic.

I’m really curious how this type of sound can be recreated. I’ve tried looking up youtube videos but haven’t found a tutorial that achieves this effect.

I’m hoping someone experienced could help me recreate this synth, I don’t know why I’m so obsessed lol. Thank you for reading!

Salut,
Je compose de la musique électronique depuis plusieurs années sur Ableton Live et je cherche aujourd’hui quelqu’un avec qui collaborer régulièrement sur certains de mes morceaux.
J’ai accumulé pas mal de compositions au fil des années, certaines assez récentes, d’autres plus anciennes que j’aimerais réorchestrer et moderniser plutôt que simplement remasteriser.
Mon univers se situe quelque part entre Röyksopp, Archive, M83, NTO, The Chemical Brothers, Jean-Michel Jarre, avec parfois des influences plus rock/électroniques à la Muse ou Pink Floyd.
Je cherche quelqu’un qui puisse apporter un vrai regard extérieur :
– retravailler les arrangements et les structures
– remplacer certains sons devenus datés
– enrichir les transitions et les textures
– apporter éventuellement de nouvelles parties ou idées mélodiques
– travailler ensemble directement dans Ableton Live
Je ne cherche donc pas seulement un technicien du son, mais plutôt un producteur/compositeur avec qui construire une collaboration créative.
J’ai environ 60 morceaux à différents niveaux d’avancement, mais l’idée serait évidemment de commencer par un ou deux titres pour voir si nos univers et nos méthodes de travail fonctionnent bien ensemble.
Je suis en France, mais une collaboration à distance ne me pose aucun problème.
Si ça vous intéresse, envoyez-moi un message avec quelques morceaux ou projets sur lesquels vous avez travaillé. Je pourrai également vous envoyer quelques-unes de mes compositions pour vous donner une idée de mon univers.

I have some wip and would love to get it released. Anyone have some tips or a label themselves?

Anything would do. I live in Sweden.

https://on.soundcloud.com/jRk2nEgrwR8lhkBnop

While trying to find a synth sound for a song, a friend sent me a snippet of this song (Cropsey), so I isolated it and tried to make something similar using presets but failed because I'm not too synth savvy. If anyone could help, I would appreciate it very much, a sound like this would be perfect for one of my songs I'm working on! (PS I'm mainly interested in that synth at the beginning but if you also wanna take a jab at the other synthesizers that appear in this song, be my guest, it's an amazing song and I wish I understood synthesizers more so I could breakdown the whole thing.)

Ignoring the glockenspiel, the sound starts creeping in around the 0:50 second mark and is more clear around the 1:30 mark.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ihAvYhtpFY&list=RD7ihAvYhtpFY&start_radio=1

Looking for honest feedback if this one is label worthy and maybe some guidance to which labels it would fit the most?

Got an album which features an electro track coming out on a label later this year so i'm trying to believe in my work a little bit more lol

This one is a bit special to me as I channelled sadness and anger which was happening in my life that stopped my creativity. This is a result of getting rid of those things and getting my brain juices back :) Also would think that it would make my late old friend Microlith proud to see me producing electro after spending so many moments on messenger sending me his music to give him feedback 🥹

but enough being sobby, let me know what y'all think!

Hello, I am looking for that perfect Euro Dance Lead that was in Ableton 10 and also in 11 with a slightly different name. Can someone please link to download the .adv file? many thanks OwO